The Moon Child Read online

  “Jem, we have to get off!”

  Jem crouched down next to Tolly, who was now crumpled against a sack with his arms wrapped tightly around his knees. “We’re still on the river – we’ve only just set sail.” He looked at the metal rungs. If they could climb up and get out onto the decks above without being seen, they could dive over the side and swim to the bank.

  He clenched his fists – but what about Ann? They couldn’t leave her.

  Jem pushed his hair away from his eyes. If she really was on board then the only way to find her was to get out of the hold and search the ship. Then all four of them would have to swim back to shore.

  He drew a deep breath. The water would be boneachingly cold, but he knew he could do it. “Come on, Tolly. Wrap Cleo in your cloak. We’re going up.”

  “And then what are we going to do?” Tolly’s eyes were closed.

  “First we’re going to find Ann and then we’ll all have to swim ashore. Cleo too.” Jem hoped he sounded more confident than he felt.

  Cleo’s head shot up and her nose twitched. Jem frowned. “Er … can she swim, Tolly?”

  The other boy was silent as Jem continued. “Look, one of us can hold Cleo safely when we jump in – she’d be happiest if it was you – and then, when we start swimming, she can cling on to your back.”

  Tolly started to laugh hollowly. “You’ve got it all worked out, haven’t you?”

  Jem was confused. Surely Tolly was as eager to leave the Fortuna as he was? “I don’t see what’s funny about swimming ashore.”

  “Don’t you?” Tolly opened his eyes. “It’s not Cleo you should be worrying about – she’ll be fine. It’s me. I can’t swim. If I jumped over I’d drown in seconds.” He brought his hands up to cradle his forehead. “I’m stuck here – and no matter how badly I want to get away, I can’t – even if we do find Ann.”

  Jem felt a cold, twisting feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was all going so wrong. He slumped down against the sack next to Tolly. Cleo leaped into his lap and Jem fondled her ears. He couldn’t shake away the thought that he was responsible for everything that had happened. Ann had gone missing from under his very nose at his own home, at Goldings. He should have protected her. It was his duty.

  What was Master Jalbert always saying? “Never drop your guard!” Well, it looked like he hadn’t even learned that simple lesson. Beside him, Tolly was like a stone.

  “I … I’m sorry. I got us into this.”

  Tolly didn’t answer.

  There had to be something they could do, some chink of hope. Jem thought hard.

  “Listen, the men back there on the quay and the boys with the hammock – the ones we heard overhead … They talked about making a crossing, didn’t they? And they both said something about a French woman being on board. So, we must be crossing the English Channel over to France. Well, if that’s true, we’ll probably make a couple of stops on the south coast first, and even if we don’t, France isn’t so far. It might even be a good thing if it gives us time to make a proper search. What do you think?”

  Jem knew his words sounded unconvincing. Even if they did find Ann aboard, that would make three people who needed to travel back from France. How would they pay for that? His fingers went to the medal hanging round his neck, the one given to him by his mother just a few hours earlier. Of course!

  He started to speak again with a brighter tone. “If you’re worried about paying for our passage back from France, don’t be. I can sell this.” He held the medal out from the neck of his shirt. “What do you say, Tolly?”

  The other boy took a deep breath and raised his head. “I say please be quiet for a moment, Jem. I can feel her. Ann. She’s here on the boat with us.”

  Jem straightened up and Cleo chattered excitedly in his lap. “How … Where? Tell me.”

  Tolly opened his eyes and stared blankly at the curved side of the ship. Jem saw his friend’s eyes move across the tar-black, riveted timbers, taking in the details of a scene that only he could see. After a moment, he frowned. “I don’t understand. It’s not right – it’s all blurred. There’s a long window. I can see water now – moving water and sunshine glinting on the waves. I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know who I am.”

  “But you do, don’t you, Tolly?” Jem broke in excitedly. “It’s Ann, isn’t it? You’re seeing through her eyes. She’s here on the boat with us.”

  Tolly nodded slowly. “Yes … yes, I think she must be. But it’s odd. All broken up. I can’t understand why I can’t speak to her and make her hear me – like we always used to. Even when we were in Malfurneaux Place I could talk to her wherever she was. This is different. It’s like there’s a fog between us.”

  Jem tried to crush the odd sensation that flared within him when he thought of the close bond between Tolly and Ann.

  For the first time since Ann’s disappearance, Tolly smiled. “You have to remember how it was for us back then,” he said gently. “We forged a link – a strange one – but that’s because we only had each other. And Cleo here.” He reached out to stroke the little monkey’s curved back. She cocked her head to one side at the mention of her name and stared from one boy to the other, her bright black eyes questioning.

  “The good thing – and as far as I can tell the only good thing about what’s happened so far –” Tolly continued, “is that Ann must be with us on this ship. She’s very close. Even if I can’t communicate with her, I can sense her.”

  Jem felt a charge of excitement. “Then we must find her. Come on.”

  Glad to have something to do, he passed Cleo gently to Tolly and scrambled to his feet. Reaching out for the rungs, he climbed until he was directly under the hatch. He raised a hand and pushed at the boards above. The hatch shifted – it was unlocked. He let it fall quietly back into place and looked down at Tolly and Cleo.

  “There’s just one thing …” He frowned. “We can’t go out now. It will be daylight up there and we’re bound to be spotted. Can you bear waiting down here until it’s dark again?”

  Tolly scratched the top of Cleo’s head between her black ears and she held his finger. He nodded. “It’s getting better. If we can find Ann, then nothing else matters.” He looked up and grinned ruefully. “And anyway – I don’t think I’ve got much choice.”

  Jem startled awake to the sound of cloth ripping. He blinked hard. He couldn’t believe that he’d fallen asleep. Only pinpricks of dull light came from knotholes in the boards above them. He wrinkled his nose and stifled a cough as the smell of old fish, tar and stale, briney water caught at the back of his throat. Tolly was sitting upright next to him on a pile of sacking, examining his blistered fingers. The eerie sound of water slapping and sucking against the sides of the boat echoed around them.

  “What time is it?” Jem whispered.

  “I heard six bells just now. It’s got dark. I’d forgotten all about my hand, but when I woke it was burning.” Tolly bound a strip of material he had torn from his undershirt round his index finger. “There, that’s better.”

  “So you slept too, then?” Jem felt almost guilty, but Tolly nodded.

  “Of course I did. We haven’t rested for hours. I woke just before you did.”

  Just then they heard the sound of footsteps and voices. The darkness was suddenly illuminated by brighter lamplight streaming through the cracks in the boards overhead. Tolly put his finger to his lips and pointed upward.

  The same voices as before came clearly from above.

  “The master mate, Grimscale, is Tartar, right enough. You’ve sailed with him before, you say, Ned?” The light, familiar voice was Spider’s. He was answered by a new and slightly deeper voice.

  “Twice. You’ll keep out of his way if you know what’s good for you. They say he was sent to sea at the age of six. Most particular he hates us younger ones cos we remind him of the brothers he never had. He’s as handy with the cat as you are with the deck scrubber. He’s not a Swale man, that’s for sure.”
/>   “It’s not Grimscale who bothers me.” This was Pocket. “It’s that other one – him with all the bones in his hair and the tattoos. He don’t say a word, he don’t, just stares at you like he can see right under your skin into your soul. S’not right having one of them on board. I mean, it’s bad enough having a woman.”

  “Well, you’d better get used to it – both of you.” Ned’s confident voice came again. “The only way to get through is to keep your head down and do your duties. After this crossing I’ll be moving my hammock out from the bilge box to the mess deck. I’m going up in the world, I am, and if you two want to do the same you’d best keep your noses clean.”

  He was interrupted by something that sounded like the chimes of a cracked bell. “Grog’s up – come on, you two. It’ll keep the winter out of your bones.” There was more thumping and creaking above as Ned, Pocket and Spider eagerly answered the tinny call.

  Jem and Tolly waited for a minute until they were sure they were alone again.

  “Now?” whispered Tolly.

  Jem nodded and stood up. He paused beneath the hatchway, listening, and then he clambered up the rungs. He was just about to push at the board when Tolly caught his ankle.

  “Wait – I almost forgot.” He retrieved Cazalon’s staff wrapped in Ann’s shawl from beneath a roll of canvas. “We can’t leave this here. I don’t know why, but it’s important.”

  Jem raised his eyebrows and turned back to the hatch. He pushed it up a little way so that he could see the space above. His eyes darted from left to right as he tried to make sense of the room. The hatch appeared to lead up into a small box-like space. The air was just as rank and unpleasant here as in the hold below. If anything it was worse.

  Two candle lanterns stood on the floor, lighting three narrow hammocks. They were slung so closely together across the tiny space that if the occupant of one of them turned over he would surely tumble onto the tenant of the next. As far as Jem could make out, the only exit was upwards, where a spindly stepladder with a couple of missing struts led to another hatch.

  Jem hauled himself into the dingy little space. “Come on. It looks like it’ll lead us out.” He reached down for the staff and then offered his friend a hand.

  Tolly grimaced as he scrambled up through the hatch. “It’s like a coffin in here.” He clenched his fists and closed his eyes. His fingers scrabbled to loosen the cloak at his neck. “We have to get out of here. I … I can’t breathe.”

  “We’ll soon be out. Now, Cleo. Come on, girl … Where is she? I thought she followed you?” Jem dipped his head back down through the hatch and peered into the gloom.

  The little monkey was cowering in front of a tall, flat package propped against the wooden wall.

  “Cleo,” Jem called softly, but she didn’t seem to hear him.

  “I’ll go and fetch her.” He leaped nimbly back down and pushed past the barrels and boxes. The package before Cleo was wrapped in layers of grey oilcloth and tightly bound with red cord. There was a long, tattered gap in the front where the fabric was ripped. Cleo chattered and grabbed his foot. Her eyes were locked on the package.

  “What’s got into you? Come on, beauty.” Jem leaned down to gather her in his arms but as he did so he thought he heard a hissing sound. He straightened up and looked around – ships always carried vermin, but did rats hiss?

  He listened. Now he could hear a dry, rustling noise too.

  He took a step back and looked up at the package. It was taller and broader than he was and it leaned back against the wall so that there was a gap behind it. Was something hiding there? Huddling Cleo close to his chest, he stepped to the side and bent to peer into the gap. Cleo whickered and wriggled in his arms. It was so gloomy he could hardly see and he wondered if maybe that was a good thing. Ship rats were said to be enormous.

  He shook his head, straightened up and turned his back.

  “Ssssssooon.” The word sounded like the swish of a sword in the air.

  Jem shuddered. It felt as if someone, or something, had traced a lump of jagged ice along every knobble of his backbone. He froze – had that been a voice? He listened for a moment but nothing more came. Perhaps it was just the distorted sound of the water sucking at the sides of the ship? Yes, that was what he’d heard … wasn’t it? Without looking back he placed Cleo firmly on his left shoulder, swayed over to the metal rungs and clambered up through the hatch.

  “So, there are two of you, are there?” The gruff, unfamiliar voice came from the left.

  Momentarily confused, Jem looked up to see Tolly pinned to the wall by a lumpen man with a pockmarked face. He seemed to fill the room.

  Tolly’s breath was coming in wheezing gasps. There were beads of sweat on his forehead despite the cold and his eyes were shut.

  The man grinned, revealing a mouth full of broken teeth and blackened gums. His tiny, watery eyes glittered in the lamplight. “And what you got there? A monkey, is it?” He leaned forward to poke at Cleo and Jem shrank back as the man’s fetid breath rolled over him. “They make good eating, they do. Not a lot of meat on them, mind, but very … toothsome.”

  The man’s huge tattooed hand shot out to grip Jem’s shoulder. “We’ll see what Captain Trevanion has to say about stowaways. I’ve not seen a proper keelhauling for years.” He began to laugh again and the tiny space fugged up with the stench of him.

  “Perhaps it’s your lucky day, lads. Or mine.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Captain Trevanion flung his grey wig to the floor of the cabin and ran his fingers through the fine fair stubble on his scalp. He turned his back on the boys – held firmly on the shoulders by the huge man who’d discovered them – and began to spin the globe that stood behind his broad oak desk. After a moment he spoke.

  “What I can’t understand is how they came aboard in the first place. You are the master mate, Grimscale. Why weren’t the watches doing their job?”

  Grimscale flushed and the scarlet pockmarks across his nose and cheeks pulsed. He opened his mouth to answer, but Jem saw the big man’s beady eyes narrow in a calculating way before he allowed himself to speak in anger.

  “They were, sir. And we made all the usual searches. These two must have come aboard just afore we set sail. They were hiding in the hold – with the rest of the rats! We need to make an example of them – a flogging or maybe a keelhauling?” He grinned. “That’s the way to keep the crew in line.”

  “A keelhauling?” Captain Trevanion spun round. In the lamplight Jem saw there were deep furrows on his high forehead and crinkles around his grey eyes. “That’s barbaric. Can’t you see they’re just boys?”

  Grimscale’s tattooed hand tightened its grip on Jem’s shoulder. “What I see, sir, beggin’ your pardon, is a pair of stowaways and they should be punished. Let me show them the cat at least?”

  Trevanion shook his head. “If you had sailed with me before, you would know that I’d never allow such cruelty on a ship of mine. Leave us now. I’ll deal with this.”

  Jem felt Grimscale stiffen beside him. He released the boys with a rough shove and took a heavy step forward, looming over the captain. Trevanion put his long, pale hands flat on the oak desk and leaned forward. “Do you have anything further to say, Master Mate?”

  Grimscale balled his right hand into a fist – the blue-black lines across the back of his hand and around his wrist knotting to form a grinning skull.

  The captain stared up at him. “Well?”

  After a long moment Grimscale nodded. “Have it your way. But Madame won’t be pleased. No one else was to make the crossing with her – that’s what she said, wasn’t it?” He smiled crookedly and once again Jem shrank from the foul stench of the man’s toothrot breath. “I wonder what she’ll say when she hears about these two? They weren’t shown off to her with the rest of the crew.”

  Trevanion looked down at the charts unfurled on his desk. He smoothed back the one on the top and held the edge in place with an intricate golden instrument
. “Then we must make it our business to make sure she doesn’t hear about them, from you or from anyone else. Is that clear?” Grimscale grunted and the captain spoke again. “I said, is that clear, Master Mate?”

  “As daybreak over the horizon, sir.”

  “You may go.”

  The big man turned and pushed angrily past the boys. As he did so, his eyes flickered over Cleo, who was curled in Tolly’s arms. “The monkey – shall I give her to the cook? The men will be wanting all the fresh meat they can get in this weather. Keep their strength up, it will.”

  “Go.” Trevanion didn’t look up. ‘And leave the monkey.’

  Grimscale’s face became purple and the cord-like veins in his neck bulged. “I’ll take this at least and store it in the hold. Ridiculous thing – and dangerous too. I’ll warrant the Moor boy meant to beat someone’s brains out with it.” He snatched up the bird-headed staff from where it lay on the floor next to Tolly’s feet and lumbered towards the door. While his back was turned, Jem retrieved Ann’s shawl from the cabin floor and tucked it into his belt.

  Trevanion waited until the furious man had squeezed his bull-like frame through the ornate narrow entrance of the cabin and slammed the door shut behind him. He looked up and studied the painted ceiling before he spoke again.

  “I am afraid you have both made a very serious mistake coming aboard the Fortuna.” Jem took in the deep lines of worry etched on the captain’s long face. He was a thin man of middle age with sad, kind eyes. Cleo chirped in Tolly’s arms and Trevanion frowned.

  “What am I to do with you all? Grimscale is right. Madame de Chouette was most specific that no one other than paid crewmen were to be aboard – and she has seen all of them. They were paraded before her like cattle just before sunrise and made to declare their loyalty. I will have to return you both to the lower hold for the entirety of the crossing.”

  “No!” Tolly gasped.

  Trevanion looked sharply at the terrified boy who was now clutching Cleo so tightly to his chest that only her head and white-tipped tail were visible through his crossed arms. “What else am I to do with the three of you? Don’t worry, I’m not a monster. You’ll be fed and watered, I promise that, but you cannot be seen by anyone except me and my most trusted men.”